Onscreen: Who Does She Think She Is?
Wouldn’t it be affirming to see your experiences as a creative mother captured on film? Filmmaker Pamela Tanner Boll, who won an Academy Award for the documentary Born Into Brothels, now addresses the issues well familiar to readers of this blog.
Who Does She Think She Is? explores the lives of five creative women, all professional artists and mothers. Boll is personally familiar with the challenges that creative mothers face: credibility, the juggling act, financial issues, marital stress. From the Director’s Statement:
At the age of 32, I had my first child. On becoming a mother, the buried part of myself — the emotional and curious, the creative — roared back to life. I wrote, then began painting again. Motherhood had returned me to my creative, expressive self.
Over the next 30 years, I painted and wrote but always in the spaces left over after my family’s needs. If I did the work it was with guilt. At the studio, I felt that I should have been reading to the children. At home with the boys, I often felt bored by the routine of feeding, cleaning, comforting, caring. [More here under “About the Film”.]
You’ll find lots of behind-the-scenes details at the film’s impressive website. Opens in theaters October 17, 2008. Until then, here’s a clip. I think this is one film that we all need to see.
Studio Mothers: Life & Art 
wow. i hope this film makes it to my neck of the woods.
ditto that wow. that does look like a very powerful film. very doubtful it will make it to blue-collar jacksonville, florida, but hopefully a DVD or PBS will soon follow up.
I find a lot of these documentaries on video at the local library. Have you seen Born Into Brothels? It was a wondeful film and even Tom enjoyed it. Not only do I think WE should see this film, I think our husbands should see this film.
I really want to see this film. Watching that preview video gave me chills.
Thank you so much for alerting us to this, Miranda.
How odd. A couple of days ago J and I went to a restaurant and her cute-as-a-button little dog stayed absolutely quiet for four hours hidden in her big holdall under the table. I remarked that I knew someone at university who apparently kept her snake in a bag and used to take it to lectures. My boyfriend at the time was very interested in meeting the girl with the snake. Soon he was not my boyfriend as he had fallen in love with the snake girl. I don’t know what happened to the snake, but Zana went on to make “Born Into Brothels”.